In an interview with The Defender, Marie Follmer said no one warned her that her 19-year-old son — a healthy, elite athlete who had recovered from COVID — shouldn’t get the Pfizer vaccine because it would put him at greater risk of developing myocarditis.
By Megan Redshaw Print
Greyson Follmer, an Ohio State University (OSU) student, was an elite athlete and member of the university’s chapter of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC).
But, according to his mother, the 19-year-old from Ohio is looking at a very different future now, after he developed severe heart complications following his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.
In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Marie Follmer said nobody warned her about the potential for increased risks of COVID vaccine-related adverse events for people like her son, who already had COVID and had acquired natural immunity.
Greyson has played sports since he was 4 years old. He was an athlete who played in the state soccer championship in high school and then went on to OSU and started college during the COVID pandemic. He also joined ROTC his freshman year and was very active — running several miles every day with heavy packs on his back.
Greyson was perfectly healthy and had no underlying conditions except for asthma — which didn’t affect his athletic abilities — and food allergies.
Like most students early on in the year, Greyson and his friends got COVID. Though most had no symptoms, Greyson experienced mild flu symptoms — though they were nothing like his post-vaccine symptoms, Follmer explained.
The university required students who had COVID to quarantine. It also required them to get a heart MRI before they could return to school. Follmer thought that was strange, but she made sure her son got one.
When the cardiac MRI came back it showed Greyson’s heart was enlarged with slight inflammation. The cardiologist thought it could be related to being an elite athlete, and signed a release for Greyson to return to school.